Sunday, March 16, 2008

The daffodil and saucer magnolia blooms have already peaked, so I won't embarass myself with pics of their sad appearance; however, other plants - like the ranunculus asiaticus, Spanish lavender and euphorbia shown above - are just gettin' started.

Oh, and the dandelions are of course flowering like crazy. My tortoise can't eat all the ones I pluck and bring in to him.

Sunday, March 09, 2008

I knew there were open pockets deep inside my compost bin, but I guess they were a little bigger and more cave-like than I thought...

After opening one of the ground-level sidedoors of the bin and scraping out some finished compost, I noticed several odd, white shapes deep in the hole. Sticking my shovel inside and knocking it around produced several of these gorgeous, portbello-sized mushrooms.

They sure looked tasty, but I wouldn't dare take that risk. So back into the bin they went.

The weather forecast finally allowed me to plant the four heirloom roses that have been languishing in containers in my sunroom all winter. They started leafing out weeks ago (I know, I know...not good), so I had to keep them inside until temperatures improved. Hopefully we'll be done with this snow stuff until next year.

That last venture hasn't been so successful, unfortunately. While Mother Nature treated us to an unusually mild winter this year in North Central Texas (I don't think we ever got below 25°, which is uncommon), I did manage to misfire on the timing of planting some broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage sprouts.

After starting and nurturing them from seed in early February, my beautiful, robust little transplants went in the ground at the community garden last Saturday. I carefully mulched around them, and covered them with hoops and frost cloth. Monday came and brought with it 40mph winds and freezing temperatures - a double whammy that both blew off the frost cloth and froze my babies to the ground.

So, time to start again. I'll be a bit behind, but will graciously and politely ask Mother Nature for spring weather on the cool side. Let's see if she listens.